Premature burial

But if context can make us think a dead body is fake, what happens when a highly trained doctor in a sterile hospital looks at a living body and assumes it is dead?

This touches on taphophobia, the primal fear of being buried alive.

Being legally pronounced dead while biologically alive is a rare but intensely documented reality.

Listeners, put yourself in this scenario.

Plus, it closed from the inside.

Up next, true stories of people being buried alive and living to tell about it, the truth behind the movie The Foxcatcher, and a story from a weirdo family member.

All of this and more when Weird Darkness returns.

Welcome back to Weird Darkness, I'm Darren Marlar.

You can watch it anytime, absolutely free, 24-7, 365, on the Monster Channel page at WeirdDarkness.com. That's the Monster Channel page at WeirdDarkness.com. Fair warning, even if you're not claustrophobic or taphophobic, what follows might have you squirming.

Mistaken for dead, many people have been entombed prematurely, only to awaken to a horrifying reality.

There are many tales of people being accidentally buried alive who are discovered all too late, But fortunately, a few did survive the horrifying ordeal and can now tell us their experience of how they made it through and found themselves back in the world of the living, although in some cases, just barely.

19-year-old Angelo Hayes was believed to have died in a motorcycle accident in 1937 in France.

Plus, it closed from the inside.

Up next, true stories of people being buried alive and living to tell about it, the truth behind the movie The Foxcatcher, and a story from a weirdo family member.

All of this and more, when Weird Darkness returns.

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Vons.

You can watch it anytime, absolutely free, 24-7, 365, on the Monster Channel page at WeirdDarkness.com. That's the Monster Channel page at WeirdDarkness.com. Fair warning, even if you're not claustrophobic or taphophobic, what follows might have you squirming.

Mistaken for dead, many people have been entombed prematurely, only to awaken to a horrifying reality.

There are many tales of people being accidentally buried alive who are discovered all too late but fortunately a few did survive the horrifying ordeal and can now tell us their experience of how they made it through and found themselves back in the world of the living, although in some cases just barely.

19-year-old Angelo Hayes was believed to have died in a motorcycle accident in 1937 in France.

I at least know my sound goods from my shoddy.

Such, I dare say, is the process of thought behind such hollow trade goods as Buried Alive and The Lion's Share.

One does not need the man's own amazing confidences to hear his snickers at his audience, at his work, and at himself.

The books of boiled mutton philosophy in the manner of Dr. Orison Swett Marden and Dr. Frank Crane, and the occasional potboilers for the newspapers and magazines, probably have much the same origin.

So why would you bury anybody alive? Well, it seems that there's a potential here to think about responsibility.

Where does the responsibility lie? And if a Vestal Virgin is the earthly representative of Vesta, then even in a moment where she may be considered guilty of a crime that is worthy of punishment, can we truly know what the God's will is? And the live burial process seems to be a way of making sure that the gods ultimately decide whether this woman is punished or not.

So live burial is It's not kind of like a horrific horror movie kind of thing where it's like they throw her into a hole and then they pile dirt up on her and she's like, ah, it's not like that.

It feels a little bit more civilized if live burial can be in any way considered civilized.

Right.

Okay.

I always just imagine that the bodies are left there.

That would be the gods deciding.

Yeah, Taker and Austin, they've been nailing each other in the face with shovels.

They're going to collide in the second ever buried alive match tonight.

Speaking of face and shovels, you remember Shovel Face?

Yeah, I

I hope so.

Yeah.

But, man, that first Buried Alive match, did you ever see that one? Mankind and Taker?

Yeah.

My twin brother Ronald and I were born in Alabama in the midst of the chaos following the Civil War, and our boyhood days were darkened by the fearful struggle for existence experienced by the people of the South at that time.

You and I seem to have similar inclinations now, but I was quite young opposite when a lad, for a haunting fear of being buried alive made an abject coward of me.

Consequently, I had no liking for graveyards or what was in them.

I was subject to a sort of catalepsy, the exact nature of which was never determined.

I bought this corner of the cemetery, erected this building and have lived here ever since.

I take care of these grounds for a reasonable stipend and the privilege of being let alone.

I haven't had an attack of my malady for many years, but I'm not taking any chances of being buried alive, for I've arranged to be my own undertaker.

The old man rose and lifted the curtain that divided the room.

details.It's noon on August fifth, nineteen twenty-six in the swimming pool of the Hotel Shelton in New York, nineteen years after Harry Houdini's fifty-seven second underwater escape in San Francisco Bay.

Dr. W.J. McConnell stands by the pool and watches as Harry prepares for a new trick called Buried Alive.

Recently, one of Harry's rivals pulled off an incredible stunt.

He was sealed inside a coffin for an hour, surviving the lack of fresh air by controlling his breathing.

Harry is determined to beat that time.

But today he wants a practice run before unveiling Buried Alive in front of a paying audience.

Dr. McConnell is there to make sure everything goes well, and he watches anxiously as Harry lays down in the wooden coffin.

Soon the lid is soldered shut, making it airtight.

Admit it, Sue.

You don't like the buried alive action, isn't that it?

Yes, yes, I guess so.

It's horrible.

Will you kindly leave? Thank you.

You are witnessing the marvel of the age.

A human being being buried alive.

The casket has stopped.